System and methodology for filling prescriptions

ABSTRACT

An overall pharmacy system and methodology begins with bulk medications and supplements introduced into the work flow, individually packaged and assembled into med pass orders per patient and delivered to the long-term care (LTC) facility or other institution for patient consumption. The process according to one embodiment of this invention begins by converting bulk medications and supplements to packaged unit doses and ultimately individually packaged med pass bags for each patient on a 24-hour schedule. The various safeguards and measures built into this system increase patient safety eliminate waste and increase labor efficiency by reducing and/or minimizing the disposal of unused medications and supplements. The design of the overall system and its individual components allows for physical control of each unit dose package from start to finish without any unit dose package “free fall” in the system. This process is automated and does not rely upon manual sorting. The med pass bags are consolidated into the final shipping container and do not require manual sorting and packing.

This claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/120, 209, filed Dec. 5, 2008 and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. This is also a continuation in part of U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 12/559,630 and 12/559,601, each filed Sep. 15, 2009 and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention is directed to a process or method for processing prescriptions and dispensing medications and nutritional supplements to be taken orally in long-term care and other institutional settings.

Individuals are taking an ever increasing variety and number of both supplements and medications. Each of these individuals has very unique requirements as to the type and concentration of medications being taken. However, pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution systems are designed for mass distribution in large quantities and have not addressed these individualized needs.

Automated dispensing of prescription medications, such as oral solid pills and liquid unit-of use ampules, is a well-known method of filling dosage-based prescriptions. Dosage-based prescriptions are filled in a way which organizes the medication into one or more dosage units by, for example, the time of day at which the medication is to be taken (med pass) or the sequence in which the medication is to be taken. Dosage-based automated medication dispensing systems have particular utility in settings where large amounts of such prescription medications are required. Hospital and other institutional formularies are ideal candidates for use of such dispensing systems. However, other businesses, such as mail order prescription filling services and pharmacies, can also use these systems.

Automated medication dispensing systems typically include one or more computer-controlled dispensing machines which store and dispense medications according to patient-specific prescription information. These automated medication dispensing devices offer many advantages. These advantages include the ability to store a broad range of prescription medications and the ability to fill patient prescriptions in a high volume manner. In addition, use of automated prescription filling equipment may reduce the possibility of human error in filling patient prescriptions. Another advantage is that the cost savings from automated dispensing of medications can be used to employ more pharmacists and care givers who can provide personalized service to the patients.

However, known automated medication dispensing systems have significant disadvantages. For example, certain dosage based systems are unable to fully utilize bulk medication dispensing technology. Bulk dispensing of medications involves the storage of pills or medications in bulk, for example in bins, magazines or canisters. The bulk-dispensed medications may be dispensed into containers according to patient-specific prescription information. As can be appreciated, bulk dispensing is most efficient when the medication is stored in a raw, non-prepackaged form since this permits great flexibility in the type of medications which can be dispensed and because the medications can be rapidly replenished in the bulk storage containers. Bulk dispensing becomes problematic when the medications are poorly and ineffectively processed in the dispenser. Commonly, the pills are mishandled, become jammed or clogged in the machine and/or are difficult to track and inventory.

Many prior art systems which provide bulk storage of individual supplements or medications do not efficiently, effectively and reliably dispense those medications and supplements to fill a patient's order. This is disadvantageous because it is difficult to arrange, customize and/or mix the bulk supplies of pills for the patient's requirements. The process also requires time-consuming and expensive inventory control of the medications to be dispensed to avoid expiration and tracking issues. Such bulk-based systems are unable to realize the flexibility and cost savings benefits of automated dispensing.

Another disadvantage of certain prior art bulk medication dispensing systems is that it is difficult to fully control and track the individual dosage units. The bulk medications used by these systems do not have information which is generated for the specific medications or supplements for each patient as the medication is dispensed. Such information might include National Drug Code (“NDC”) information and a code for the storage location of the medication within the dispensing system. This information is limited and leaves little room for application of more patient-specific information such as the patient's name and other information which directly links the patient to the medication.

There are many potentially useful applications for the patient-specific information. For example, this information can be used at the completion of the filling process to verify that the correct medication has been supplied to the patient. The information could be used at the patient's bedside to create a record of the medication taken by the patient including the type and quantity of medication taken and the time of day or med pass at which the medication was taken.

It would be a significant improvement in the art to provide an automated method for processing prescriptions and dispensing medications in dosage form with real-time-generated machine-readable code so that the medication could be associated with a specific patient.

Additional problems exist with the current manner of dispensing these medications and supplements. The user or institution needs to keep track of times at which doses are to be taken, and remember to take or administer each of the doses. Often, a patient will forget either to take a dose, or forget that they have taken a dose, wherein they take an additional dose or miss a dose. Misdosing is very prevalent amongst senior citizens, especially the millions suffering from memory loss, or Alzheimer's disease.

Requiring individuals to collect and dispense from their own medicine cabinets is subject to a significant degree of risk. Medications are forgotten, taken incorrectly, mixed improperly, and so forth. It is onerous to many senior citizens who must deal with the most complex assortment of medications and supplements. Due to the difficulties with orchestrating each pill dose, it is not surprising how often people forget, or make dosing mistakes with even their most important medications.

Institutional care organizations, such as hospitals, long-term care facilities, nursing homes, and the like, suffer from additional problems associated with providing doses of supplements and medications to their patients. Institutions have a staff which maintains the various supplements and medications distribution to the patients. The overhead and liability associated with creating and supervising the prescriptions and these numerous doses each day for every patient becomes exceedingly costly and prone to error. It will certainly be appreciated that the inventory of supplements and medications at an institution must be carefully managed to assure adequate supplies, proper storage conditions, proper dispensing conditions, prevent theft, and assure that expiration dates are taken into account. Care providers and staff need to remain vigilant to be certain that each patient gets the proper doses, and that doses created for one patient are not received by another patient. Misdosing of patients within an institutional setting can have dire consequences.

Another problem arises when a patient's prescription changes and dosing has already been prepared for the patient. Pre-packaged multiple medications are one option that is difficult to implement because the pre-packaging of multiple medications for use over a period of time is a specially service that has not been successfully automated to date. The manual processing of prescription orders is expensive because the process lacks automation. Therefore, there is a need for an automated ordering system and process that is simple and cost effective for a patient or a pharmacist to use. An automated system and method for receiving orders would make it substantially easier to process a multiple prescription order, which would in turn make the process much more cost effective. In the event the patient is discharged or the treatment is changed, the unused portion of a prepared multi-day supply cannot be cost effectively reused even though the product may be labeled appropriately. The labor cost required for reintroducing the medications and supplements into the system and maintain the integrity and traceability of manufacturer and expiration data exceeds the value of the medicine/supplement, even if the substantial restocking fees are paid by the healthcare system. As a result, such unused medications and supplements are returned to the pharmacy for disposal. This disposal of unused medications and supplements is a significant waste of those resources as well as a detriment to the environment.

As can be seen, therefore, the development of an improved method for processing and dispensing both consumers and institutions that would eliminate the necessity of wasting unused medications while increasing safety and convenience is needed. Moreover, a convenient and efficient way for patients, pharmacists, and physicians to order multi-drug prescriptions from a pharmaceutical dispensing system which produces multi-dose prescriptions is needed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This invention solves these and other problems in the prior art by providing in one embodiment an overall pharmacy system and methodology in which bulk medications and supplements are introduced into the work flow, individually packaged and assembled into med pass orders per patient and delivered to the long-term care (LTC) facility or other institution for patient consumption.

The process according to one embodiment of this invention begins by converting bulk medications and supplements to packaged unit doses and ultimately individually packaged med pass bags for each patient on a 24-hour schedule. Additionally, inventory management is automated and the various safeguards and measures built into this system increase patient safety eliminate waste and increase labor efficiency by reducing and/or minimizing the disposal of unused medications and supplements.

One objective of this system and methodology is to avoid the need for disposal of prescriptions medications and nutritional supplements thereby attacking the waste and inefficiency issues at their source. The strategy and approach utilized by this invention is much more comprehensive than just a medication and nutritional supplement automated dispenser. The comprehensive strategy employed by this invention to the efficient and economical distribution of medications and supplements begins with logging into an inventory database the bulk medications and supplements before each of the individual doses are packaged and then assembled in a unit dose storage tube in conjunction with pharmacist review. A fill event server is updated at each step in the process and positive control of each unit dose package is maintained throughout the entire process. In other words, gravity feed and the random nature of bulk or loose pills and other medications freefalling through or clogging the system is avoided in the approach adopted by this invention.

After the unit dose storage tubes are prepared and entered into the inventory database, they are loaded into the dispenser for the automated filling and packaging of individual med pass patient orders. The dispenser provides an automated solution to the efficient and timely preparation of med pass orders handled in LTC and assisted living settings by filling individual med pass orders for each patient and assembling them in a bag of unit dose medications and supplements and combining individual bags together. The dispenser is typically located remotely from the LTC facility and will serve multiple facilities. The bags are then packed in a tote and delivered to the LTC for distribution. At each step in the process, the unit dose medications and supplements are tracked via a bar code scanner and the status of each unit dose medication is cataloged and regularly updated in the pharmacy information management system (PIMS) database.

The design of the overall system and its individual components allows for physical control of each unit dose package from start to finish without any unit dose package “free fall” in the system. This process is automated and does not rely upon manual sorting. The med pass bags are consolidated into the final shipping container and do not require manual sorting and packing thereby solving many of the problems associated with prior art solutions.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

The above-mentioned and other features and advantages of this invention, and the manner of attaining them, will become more apparent and the invention itself will be better understood by reference to the following description of embodiments of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing, wherein:

The FIGURE is a schematic representation of one embodiment of a methodology and associated system components for automated fulfillment of patient prescriptions for a long term care facility according to this invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The detailed description exemplifies specific embodiments of the invention which are described in sufficient detail so as to allow a person of ordinary skill in the art to practice the invention without undue experimentation. It will be appreciated that the apparatus and associated method may vary as to configuration and as to details of the parts and steps without departing from the basic concepts as disclosed herein. While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, a specific embodiment thereof is shown by way of example in the FIGURE and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that there is no intent to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the invention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the claims.

Referring to the FIGURE, this invention is generally directed to a process or method and associated system and sub-systems 10 to provide a turnkey solution for dispensing solid medications and nutritional supplements 12 to be taken orally in health care settings, including but not limited to long term care (LTC) and assisted living settings 14. The process begins by converting bulk medications and supplements 12 to individual packaged unit doses 18 and ultimately individually packaged med pass bags 20 containing the prescribed medications and supplements 12 for each patient on a 24-hour schedule. Generally, this invention is directed to a process 10 for filling prescriptions which begins with receiving an order 22 by the system 10. Additionally, inventory management is also automated via a master packaging fill event server 24. The various safeguards and measures built into the system of this invention include unit dose scanning at various steps as well as personal inspections, as needed, to increase patient safety, eliminate waste and increase labor efficiency by reducing and/or minimizing the disposal of unused medications and supplements.

The system and associated method 10 of this invention is used to dispense unit dose oral solid medications and supplements 12 within a LTC facility 14 based on a twenty-four (24) hour fill cycle. The system 10 is capable of handling vials as an added feature should the system require and so demand. The medications and supplements 12 are delivered by the pharmacy within the LTC to the LTC facility patients. The system 10 is designed to fulfill cycle-fill orders, new prescription orders, PRN orders, ER box restock orders and leave of absence orders in both manual and STAT delivery modes.

One objective of this system and methodology 10 is to avoid the need for disposal of unused medications and supplements 12 thereby attacking the waste and inefficiency issues at their source. The strategy and approach utilized by this invention utilizes a unit dose dispenser 28, but the invention is much more comprehensive than just the medication and nutritional supplement automated dispenser 28 that may be utilized. The comprehensive strategy employed by this solution to the efficient and economical distribution of medications and supplements 12 begins with logging into an inventory database 30 the bulk medications and supplements 12 before each of the medications and supplements 12 are initially placed in bulk inventory storage 46 or directly packaged in a unit dose packager 38 and then assembled in a unit dose tube 32 in conjunction with pharmacist review 34. A fill event server 24 is updated at each step in the process and positive control of each unit dose package 18 is maintained throughout the entire process 10. In other words, gravity feed and the random nature of medications freefalling through the system 10 is avoided in the approach according to this invention. After the unit dose storage tubes 32 are prepared and entered into the dispenser inventory database 36, they are loaded into the automated dispenser 28 for the assembling via automated filling and bagging of individual med pass patient bags 20.

The bulk medications and supplements 12 are individually packaged in unit dose packages 18 by a unit dose packager 38. The unit dose packager 38 in one embodiment of this invention includes a pill shuttle and magazine loader system (not shown) which seals individual medications/supplements 12 into blister packages, separates the blister packages into discrete lanes and loads the individual blister packages 18 into tubes 32. The unit dose packages 18 may be stored in inventory 48 prior to being placed in tubes 32 as demand indicates. Multiple tubes 32 may be filled simultaneously and once the tubes 32 are filled, they are verified by a pharmacist and upon proper verification, transferred to the unit dose dispenser 28 for dispensing to fill the individual prescription orders.

In one embodiment, the unit dose packager 38 utilized with this invention is manufactured by Pentapack N.A. Corp. (www.pentapackna.com) as Model BP515. The Pentapack packager packages medications and supplements 12 in the blister packages 18 and may be utilized in combination with a pill shuttle (not shown) to aid an operator in the loading of bulk medications and supplements 12 into the unit dose packager 38.

The tubes 32 filled with unit dose packages 18 are loaded into the dispenser 28. The dispenser 28 provides an automated solution to the efficient and timely preparation of med pass bags 20 handled in LTC and assisted living settings 14 by filling individual med pass orders for each patient and assembling them in a bag 20 of unit dose medications and supplements 12 and staking individual bags together as needed. The unit dose dispenser 28 may be located remotely from the LTC facility 14 and will serve multiple facilities 14. The staked bags 20 are then packed into a tote 40 and delivered to the LTC 14 for distribution. At each step in the process, the unit dose packages 18 are tracked via one or more bar code scanners 26 and the status of each unit dose package 18 is cataloged and regularly updated in the pharmacy information management system (PIMS) database 42.

The design of the overall system 10 and its individual components according to this invention allows for physical control of each unit dose 18 from start to finish without any unit dose “free fall” in the system. This process is automated via appropriate computer operations 50 and does not rely upon manual sorting. The med pass bags 20 are consolidated into the final shipping tote 40 and do not require manual sorting and packing. The fill event server 24 interfaces with the unit dose dispenser 28 to provide appropriate pick commands 52 according to the orders 22. It will be appreciated that although it is preferable to separately retain each of the unit doses within individual packages 18 which are assembled with one another in a given bag 20 such as date sequential for a single patient, med pass or by patient number (for multiple patients within an institutional setting); the medications and supplements 12 may be alternatively packaged in any convenient form which allows a set of medications or supplements 12 which was selected via the order 22 to be taken at a given time or med pass to be easily retrieved for use without departing from the invention.

Each individual bag 20 may be configured with an indicia 44 containing information about whom the individualized prescription has been created for, and the time that the dose is to be taken. For example each bag 20 may contain the name of who is to take the order, for example “Jane Doe” and their address, should the packet get misplaced, “1990 Paxit Drive, Columbus, Ohio 43230”. Each Dose packet preferably contains the date and time the dose is to be taken, for example a series may appear as: “8:00 AM on Tuesday, Jun. 1, 2009”, “2:00 PM on Tuesday, Jun. 1, 2009”, “8:00 PM on Tuesday, Jun. 1, 2009”, “8:00 AM on Wednesday, Jun. 2, 2009”, . . . “8:00 PM on Tuesday, Jun. 29, 2009”. The bag 20 may include additional information such as “Take with food” and any other precautions. Inserted instructions or content list may also be included within each bag 20. In addition, the bag 20 may contain information listing information about the medications or supplements 12 contained therein. The string of individualized bags 20 are placed in the tote 40 with any other portions of the order 22, and shipped to the LTC 14.

A user may submit an order 22 into the PIMS database 42 which order may originate from a consumer, patient, doctor, administrator or pharmacist via an internet enabled computer or appliance, accessing through the Internet, a web site hosted by a web server. Within the web site the individual can establish a dosing schedule by selecting the times during each day and the medications and/or supplements 12 to be taken at those times. The fill event server 24, which is associated with the system 10, receives the processed orders 22 from the PIMS 42. It will be appreciated that alternative forms of data communication, such as electronic data interchange, XML, and so forth may be utilized to allow the user to submit the order(s) to be processed by the system 10. Furthermore, the communication system may be integrated within, or operate in conjunction with an institutional computer system, such as a hospital, nursing-home, LTC and similar systems that may act as a user on behalf of a patient. It should also be appreciated that institutions often prefer their own interface wherein alternative communication protocols are established for communicating the dose information to the temporal dosing system without departing from this invention. Prescription orders 22 that are phoned in or sent in by facsimile can be entered into the PIMS 42 through a control terminal (not shown) by a local operator. Moreover, control terminal will also be used for performing maintenance on prescription processing system 10 and for interacting with and updating software programs on the system 10.

In one embodiment, the unit dose dispenser 28 which may be utilized with this invention is described in related patent application Ser. Nos. 12/559,630 and 12/559,601, each filed Sep. 15, 2009 and each incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

A conveyor (not shown) of the dispenser receives individual unit dose packages 18 from a series of dispensing modules and at a down-stream end of the conveyor, the unit dose packages 18 are deposited into a bag 20. The bag 20 is collected with other bags and the groups of bags are joined via heat and staked together. The staked bags 20 are then loaded into a tote 40 and once the tote 40 is filled, it is automatically labeled, verified through a scanner 26 and delivered to the LTC 14 for consumption by the patients. The inventory of the dispenser 28 is updated 36 as reflected in the fill event server 24.

From the above disclosure of the general principles of the present invention and the preceding detailed description of at least one preferred embodiment, those skilled in the art will readily comprehend the various modifications to which this invention is susceptible. Therefore, we desire to be limited only by the scope of the following claims and equivalents thereof. 

1. A method for processing prescription orders for patients of multiple medications, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a bulk supply of a variety of medications; entering information pertaining to the bulk supply of medications into an inventory database; packaging each of the medications in the bulk supply of medications into individual unit dose packages; updating the inventory database with unit dose package information; placing the unit dose packages into inventory of a dispensing system; receiving a patient's prescription order for a plurality of identified medications; dispensing unit dose packages associated with the plurality of identified medications from the dispensing system; assembling the dispensed unit dose packages together; and delivering the assembled unit dose packages corresponding to the patient's order.
 2. The method of claim 1 further comprising: assembling similar medications after the packaging step and prior to the placing step.
 3. The method of claim 1 further comprising: labeling each of the unit dose packages with relevant medication information.
 4. The method of claim 1 further comprising: maintaining positive physical control over the unit dose packages.
 5. The method of claim 1 wherein the delivering step further comprises: shipping the assembled unit dose packages corresponding to the patient's order to a location remotely located relative to the dispensing system.
 6. The method of claim 1 further comprising: verifying the patient's prescription after the receiving step.
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein the assembling step further comprises: bagging the retrieved unit dose packages associated with a single med pass for each patient into a bag.
 8. The method of claim 7 further comprising: accumulating a plurality of the bags for a given patient, each bag being associated with a different med pass.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein the delivering step further comprises: shipping the assembled unit dose packages corresponding to a first patient's order to a first location remotely located relative to the dispensing system; and shipping the assembled unit dose packages corresponding to a second patient's order to a second location remotely located relative to the dispensing system and the first location.
 10. The method of claim 1 wherein the medications in the bulk supply of a variety of medications are not contained in individual unit dose packages prior to the packaging step.
 11. The method of claim 1 further comprising: tracking the medications throughout the method; and updating the inventory database with the tracking information.
 12. A method for processing prescription orders for patients of multiple medications, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a bulk supply of a variety of medications; entering information pertaining to the bulk supply of medications into an inventory database; packaging each of the medications in the bulk supply of medications into individual unit dose packages; labeling each of the unit dose packages with relevant medication information; updating the inventory database with unit dose package information; placing the unit dose packages into inventory of a dispensing system; receiving a patient's prescription order for a plurality of identified medications; dispensing unit dose packages associated with the plurality of identified medications from the dispensing system; assembling the dispensed unit dose packages together; and shipping the assembled unit dose packages corresponding to the patient's order to a location remotely located relative to the dispensing system.
 13. The method of claim 12 further comprising: assembling similar medications after the packaging step and prior to the placing step.
 14. The method of claim 12 further comprising: maintaining positive physical control over the unit dose packages.
 15. The method of claim 12 further comprising: verifying the patient's prescription after the receiving step.
 16. The method of claim 12 wherein the assembling step further comprises: bagging the retrieved unit dose packages associated with a single med pass for each patient into a bag; and accumulating a plurality of the bags for a given patient, each bag being associated with a different med pass.
 17. The method of claim 12 further comprising: shipping assembled unit dose packages corresponding to a second patient's order to a second location remotely located relative to the dispensing system and the first location.
 18. The method of claim 12 wherein the medications in the bulk supply of a variety of medications are not contained in individual unit dose packages prior to the packaging step.
 19. The method of claim 12 further comprising: tracking the medications throughout the method; and updating the inventory database with the tracking information.
 20. A method for processing prescription orders for patients of multiple medications, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a bulk supply of a variety of medications; entering information pertaining to the bulk supply of medications into an inventory database; packaging each of the medications in the bulk supply of medications into individual unit dose packages; labeling each of the unit dose packages with relevant medication information; updating the inventory database with unit dose package information; assembling similar medications into containers after the packaging step and prior to the placing step; placing the containers of unit dose packages into inventory of a dispensing system; receiving a patient's prescription order for a plurality of identified medications; verifying the patient's prescription after the receiving step; dispensing unit dose packages associated with the plurality of identified medications from the dispensing system; assembling the dispensed unit dose packages associated with a single med pass for each patient together in a bag; accumulating a plurality of the bags for a given patient, each bag being associated with a different med pass; shipping the assembled unit dose packages corresponding to the patient's order to a location remotely located relative to the dispensing system; and maintaining positive physical control over the unit dose packages. 